Why Cooking Is the Best: Part One

There is an argument—and I made it 15 years ago—that Cooking Solves Everything (that was the original title of this rather long piece). Simply put, when you cook you are more aware of every stage the food goes through between purchase and eating: You buy better food than, for example, a fast-food place does; you probably buy more appropriate amounts; you don’t cook with ersatz ingredients; you certainly don’t ultra-process what you’re cooking; and the list goes on. Thus you have an immediate impact on agriculture, the environment (including climate), and health.

The problem, of course, is that almost no one cooks. (Well, you probably do, but our audience is indeed one of cooks.) And the number of people who do is decreasing all the time. Really, we don’t even know who cooks and how much. It was once fairly easy to calculate—because “meals eaten at home” were usually cooked—but what with takeout and delivery, we may be at a point where more meals eaten at home are cooked by others than by us.